It is an accepted practice to construct water, telephone, electric and other utility systems under the surface of travelways, such as roads and walks over which vehicles, pedestrians, and animals travel. Access is sometimes needed into such systems and various of their elements after they have been installed. Thus, a water distribution system may have shut-off valves positioned to facilitate providing or discontinuing or regulating the flow of water from the system into places where the water is used, such as homes, offices, factories, and the like. To get access to such elements without having to tear up the road or other travelway, access ports are provided, typically having a widened portion at the level of the travelway surface to provide a seat in which a cover may be positioned, with a top surface substantially co-planar with the top surface of the travelway. Traditionally, these elements are made from cast or other strong, durable, corrosion and rust resistant, inexpensive, readily formable materials such as cast iron. However, typically they are used along with paving materials which frequently are added for maintenance and repair purposes, and are exposed to sand and salt from winter maintenance and to the weather, with resulting rusting, infiltration, and other forms of chemical and mechanical bonding of contacting surfaces of the elements. These factors, particularly when present in conjunction with the constant downward pressure of passing vehicles and pedestrians, frequently cause the covers to bond to their seats and/or to become tightly wedged, and to the extent of even becoming immovable because of sand and other debris which fills the interstices between them. It is usual for them to be very difficult to remove, and it is not unusual for it to become necessary to break the cover itself and/or the flange of the seat in which a cover resides in order to be able to work the cover loose.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide means to penetrate the intersticial areas surrounding a utility access cover.
Another object of this invention is to provide such means including means for facilitating lifting such covers from the associated apparatus in which they are seated.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide means for driving such penetration means into such intersticial areas. Still another object is to provide means for achieving the foregoing objects in a unified tool mechanism.